The Frederick News-Post Online - Frederick County Maryland Daily Newspaper

The Frederick News-Post Online - Frederick County Maryland Daily Newspaper Maryland can't arrest away drug use Originally published January 17, 2010 Thousands of Maryland parents are hoping that the threat of arrest will steer their kids clear of a run-in with the law. A new report, however, shows that nationally, marijuana use does not go down as marijuana possession arrests go up. In "Marijuana Arrests in the United States in 2007," a study funded by the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project, Jon Gettman, adjunct assistant professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., concludes that "Nationally, there is little apparent relationship between increasing marijuana arrests and the rates of use." U.S. marijuana arrests jumped from 287,850 in 1991 to 872,720 in 2007. During the same period people reporting marijuana use within the past year also went up, from 19.2 million to 25.2 million.